A contradiction
Bill Kettenhofen (RB 2016-1-13) says that “there is no denying the fact that there must be a God” and then goes on to state “The irony is that Mr. Blinn thinks he is doing the logical thing by demanding proof…” How can God’s existence be a fact if I can’t call him up on my phone for a chat? How am I supposed to know what his intent is if I can’t talk to him? Then Bill goes into his contradiction by saying “… many hundreds of prophecies that have resulted in fulfillment with no erroneous predictions” and “ … perfection demands that we have a free will that is not tainted by coercion from God.”
If you can predict what I am going to do “with no erroneous predictions” then I have no “free will.” If I have free will then how can he predict what I am going to do? I am sure Bill can’t see the contradiction and the “illogical thing in this particular case,” but then that is the way for people who do not use critical thinking.
Kevin Bracken, Kelseyville
So many books
There are about one thousand pages in my version of the 1952 Bible.
I have written several studies on religion and the misuses of history as well. I have used about 150 references for every 100 pages I write. In my study of the tribes of the world — from ancient cavemen to the tribes of Israel — I wrote nearly 400 pages and documented it with 30 pages of references of about 15 references per page or 450 references. I would say that each reference book I used was about 300 pages in length. So multiplying 450 time 300 is about 140,000 pages or the length of 140 Bibles.
The reason I use so many references is that it provides the broadest range of opinions and the greatest range of ideas from hundreds of authors. To confine my research to only one source would immediately make my work suspect of being biased and open it up to endless criticism.
This is the way of the scientific method and how scientific thinking operates. Science is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific is to use empirical or measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. It is an ongoing process which begins with observations about the natural world.
So there is no way of responding to a belief system that states that only one text is needed to explain the world and that it is all one God’s word. So we can argue all day about the validity of prophecies and I will remain firmly in the camp that makes the prophecies in the Bible highly suspect of being real and makes them unproven and not even provable. I know this because the Bible is not written in a scientific manner and that it can never provide scientific answers to anything!
So I will continue to read the many thousands of books that find the Bible is suspect in many if not all areas. I do not need any salvation from a He/She/It, since if there even is a heaven, I will be there! I don’t need proof of God’s power since all of this universe (which means everything — even God, if there is one) came from the atheistic Big Bang.
Greg Blinn, Kelseyville
Research
“I looked up the word ‘politics’ in the dictionary and it’s actually a combination of two words: ‘poli,’ which means many, and ‘tics,’ which means bloodsuckers.” — Jay Leno
Brent Pomeroy, Lakeport
